UK to rethink tech buying after Palantir contracts

The UK government has promised a different approach to tech procurement following the award of controversial contracts to Palantir. Speaking to MPs, science minister Patrick Vallance said that the government's deals with Palantir – which has large contracts with the NHS and the Ministry of Defence – would be done differently …

[Dan 55]

Well, I'm glad we got there in the end

A shame we're shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted though.

[Charlie Clark]

Re: Well, I'm glad we got there in the end

Well, we've got a committee together to discuss shutting the door.

[Steve Davies 3]

Re: Well, we've got a committee together to discuss...

/who should be on a committee that will discuss shutting the door in 2030.

Or... nothing will happen until the next bunch of tossers get elected to Parliament (those tossers are probably going to have Farage at its head unless the people wise up before then)

There fixed it for you.

[Dan 55]

Re: Well, I'm glad we got there in the end

Add another item to the agenda to talk about...

Palantir extends reach into British state as it gets access to sensitive FCA data

Exclusive: Allowing US tech firm to analyse intelligence in name of tackling fraud raises fresh concerns over privacy

...

The contract has prompted warnings of “very significant privacy concerns”. Palantir is expected to apply its AI system, known as Foundry, to huge quantities of information held by the watchdog, including case intelligence files marked highly sensitive; information on so-called problem firms; reports from lenders about proven and suspected frauds; and data about the public, including consumer complaints to the financial ombudsman.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Well, I'm glad we got there in the end

Calling bullshit … as coincidentally today ….

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/mar/22/palantir-extends-reach-into-british-state-as-it-gets-access-to-sensitive-fca-data

[Evil Auditor]

At least, some other country thought before contracting the Palantir. And, apparently, Palantir doesn't like it when their business failure is being reported: The Guardian article

[nichomach]

I don't feel so bad about writing to my MP now. Apparently there is at least some response to pressure.

[Anonymous Coward]

Different pig, same lipstick

As long as we don't replace expensive American rubbish with slightly less expensive British rubbish.

Wasn't Horizon "made in Britain" (albeit owned by a Japanese company)?

If the same cliques are running the procurement and tender processes, what's to stop that happening?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Different pig, same lipstick

The primary issue isn't whether or not Palantir and their service are crap. The primary issue is whether- far more obviously so in light of events since early 2025- a company like Palantir can be trusted with the personal data of NHS England patients they've already been trusted with.

The answer is, no they can't, and they never should have been.

[Acrimonius]

Re: Different pig, same lipstick

More likely a more expensive British rubbish that only half works and is never completed. In any case, delusionary to think there is such thing as 'Made in Britain'. Bidders will of course claim it and Government will just go along - a path of least further time and energy- thankful that they can now tick the sovereignty box..

[hoola]

Re: Different pig, same lipstick

You mean implementations like Birmingham Oracle fiasco. When I last looked Oracle is not a UK company.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Different pig, same lipstick

Or West Sussex with the same issue.

https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/16/west_sussex_oracle/#:~:text=West%20Sussex%20County%20Council%20has,15%20times%20the%20original%20estimate.

[anothercynic]

Re: Different pig, same lipstick

Given that Manchester has built its own data analysis platform and is using it to great effect (apparently they tried the Palantir thing and found it didn't do what they needed, so they're sticking with their own solution), it's not like it's *that* difficult to do. It does take effort, yes, and it takes effort to get hold of people in all the trusts/ICBs to cook up something central that works for everyone, but as long as the expertise stays in the NHS and not gets farmed out to consultancies and spy outfits like Palantir, this would work a damn sight better.

It's when consultants get involved that shit gets expensive.

[StewartWhite]

Opt-out? You're having a laugh

Interestingly people think that they have an optout re their personal NHS data being used in the Federated Data Platform. https://www.england.nhs.uk/digitaltechnology/nhs-federated-data-platform/security-privacy/nhs-fdp-privacy-notice/#thirteen makes it clear that nobody can opt out (apart from genuinely important people such as the Health Minister no doubt). It's nice to know that our data is being misused for free by a spy-tech firm and MPs simply don't care.

I specifically objected to the ICO re my data being used in the earlier incarnation of this spying exercise (Faster Data Flows) but they told me to get lost as per below (NHS England is no longer relevant, not that it ever was, in this case but it makes no difference). As it explicitly states "personal data" is to be used for pretty much anything they like - the idea that the NHS has a clue what Palantir are doing with the data that they're scraping from the NHS would be hysterically funny if it weren't so serious an abuse.

- We have been given a legal ‘Direction’, from the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care which requires NHS England to collect this data.

- The Direction creates a legal obligation for us to use personal data for the purpose set out in the Direction.

[elsergiovolador]

Re: Opt-out? You're having a laugh

MPs simply don't care.

Have you invited your MP to a wine and steak dinner? There is your answer why they don't care.

[StewartWhite]

Re: Opt-out? You're having a laugh

Sadly I don't think a wine and steak dinner would be able to "trump" the backhanders from Palantir to the powers that be so although they would no doubt heartily accept the offer of a free dinner Palantir would still be the one paying the piper more and hence still calling the tune.

[elsergiovolador]

Re: Opt-out? You're having a laugh

Maybe tax payer should consider vibe coding some sort of kickstarter equivalent for policies. Say "We want big corporations to pay right amount of tax" and then set the goal to whatever is the going rate for the policy these days. Once the amount is reached, invite the government officials and hand the big brown envelope. Maybe that's the way to reestablish some semblance of democracy.

[elsergiovolador]

Translation

The UK government has promised a kicked in the long grass the different approach to tech procurement following the award of controversial contracts to Palantir.

FTFY

[John Robson]

I still see no reason not to do these large projects in house.

It's not as if we can't afford to hire people at sensible salaries, we're already doing that with a massive profit markup built in as well.

[elsergiovolador]

Typically senior civil servants would block it. Reasoning given likely is: this pimpled basement dweller cannot earn more than me, I don't care if they are code whisperers we need, I very much prefer we hire from big consultancy, so that I get invited to wine and steak dinners and my nephew gets good uni placement with all expenses paid or something like that.

[hoola]

There I believe you are wrong.

The public sector in the UK is tied to some of the most ridiculous procurement rules you can imagine.

Most are the to prevent parasites in the private sector sueing when their bid is unsuccessful.

More interesting is that many are baser on EU rules but just like anything else to do with the EU, the UK has always followed these rules to the letter and more to the detriment of UK suppliers and the country as a whole.

[Anonymous Coward]

Out of the frying pan.....

As with others posting here, I am deeply involved in this area, hence posting anonymously

Part of the issue is that under NHS Agenda For Change then NHS IT folk are classed as clerical workers, meaning that those in post are either extraordinarily dedicated public servants, or people who cannot get employment in the most rapidly expanding sector of the economy. As a result in what was NHSD - mostly in Leeds - which has now become part of NHSE, then the only competent technical engineers are employed as external contractors on multi year contracts (very quietly).

Working with Palantir on NHS data has been a breath of fresh air because Palantir have competent engineers and we can make stuff happen in the way that is not possible with the NHS where there is no cost to lack of competence or ability.

To give you an idea, the way that most NHS data is submitted is manually by manually validated files that are submitted in bulk and can be updated up to 400 days after submission.

The idea of real time data being important for managing real time NHS clinical practice just didn't occur to the bovine herds of nerds in the NHS until the pandemic hit when it was too late.

Imagine any public facing business running on data being submitted when the sender was ready - retail changed to real-time 40 years ago.

While I don't trust Palantir as an organisation, the engineers know what they are doing and although their product (Foundry) is clunky as hell, it can do what the NHS needs, but because it is so clunky it requires Palantir to write most of the interface code.

Repeated weak / incompetent NHS digital leadership with limited technical knowledge has resulted in the current situation.

In the context, employing Palantir to do a proof of concept is entirely understandable, and probably what I would have done in the same situation. However the technology is not difficult - we have just let the bottom-feeders dictate the pace - it is that the lack of clinical and technical integrated leadership, which means we repeatedly solve the wrong problems the wrong way.

Of the people cited in the article, Sonia Patel is respected and is a loss to the NHS, but I can quite understand why she is jumping ship.

The bad news is that the person who I believe will replace Ming Tang is an order of magnitude less intelligent than Ming, and is completely disconnected from clinical practice (this is a bit of a problem in the NHS), and has already destroyed large chunks of the competent bits of NHS digital estate. This is why anyone competent is getting out.

[anothercynic]

Re: Out of the frying pan.....

We see this in other parts of the NHS (and other public services) too...

[John Robson]

Re: Out of the frying pan.....

Oh I have no doubts as to the current state of play, having been a consultant in the public sector before...

But that's not a reason to keep doing it wrong.

If the UK government spun up an IT department which took this all on - and employed people at market rates then the procurement rules stop being relevant.

It would be a significant project to get it up and running, but governments should be able to work on things that take longer than a parliamentary session.

[harrys]

Re: Out of the frying pan.....

"those in post are either extraordinarily dedicated public servants, or people who cannot get employment in the most rapidly expanding sector of the economy"

This situation has simply occured because needed recessionary periods have been kicked down the road by artifically increasing assett prices to compensate, especially house prices, which is a double wammy in this regard to the needs/expectations of the "clever people"

Recessions are so needed on a cyclic frequency (the periods can be argued about) so that there is a rush to safer public posts forcing out the lower quality cohort of waste/indolence, hopefully whilst retaining the dedicated staff

Luckily only human hubris think recession can be avoided

"the times they are a changin", those that can adapt well.......

[Gavsky]

We don't need your foreign rubbish here! We can create reams of British crap ourselves!

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Best Of British

Crème de la crème

Capita plc is an international business process outsourcing and professional services company headquartered in London. It is the largest business process outsourcing and professional services company in the United Kingdom

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capita

[elsergiovolador]

Re: Best Of British

And exempt from IR35.

[Anonymous Coward]

We already have a solution

The frustrating thing is that the UK already has a British developed, free-to-the-NHS, primary and secondary care health data platform, that's been running with 40 million patients for over 8 years.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: We already have a solution

"The frustrating thing is that the UK already has..."

The UK has? I assume you mean (NHS) England (and possibly Wales) has...

[Thermobaric Badger]

Re: We already have a solution

Anyone/everyone has. Like I said, it's free (funded by a charitable trust). But only NHS England is currently using it (but had been for over 8 years).

[JimmyPage]

Starting point ?

NO ONE can be trusted with our data.

Let's do all our working with that in mind. You'd be amazed how quickly you stop doing things the way you have always done them.

[ocelot]

If you read LOTR

You will know that a Palantir is not generallly a good thing to have around.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup.....no mention of "digital sovereignty" in this article.....

Strange, don't you think?

Yup....contracts with Palantir, Microsoft, Amazon, ORACLE, IBM, Cisco, Fujitsu, Google.......contracts up the ying-yang!

But SERIOUS MISDIRECTION right here to make me think ONLY about Palantir!!

Yup....."digital sovereignty" is ACTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE! So plenty of misdirection about Palantir!

Sigh!

[may_i]

Just break the contracts

Given the USA's rapid progression towards a pariah state, there should be plenty of grounds to cancel anything ongoing.

As the AC above me rightly points out, Palantir is just a tiny part of the complete infiltration of European IT infrastructure by companies who can hardly be deemed trustworthy in today's political climate.

We should have seen the writing on the wall when the first warning signals came about how US data transfers subjected people to illegal surveillance. The British people should have stopped GCHQ doing the same to them. Many of us here have been pointing out that "cloud" means "your data on someone else's computer" for as long as El Reg has existed.

Edward Snowden proved to the world that the USA archives every bit of data they can get about everyone on the planet by whatever means. Even if they can't currently break encryption on something, they keep it for when they can. They conspire to compromise encryption systems to enable greater collection. They have enabled bulk collection of nearly all Internet traffic, worldwide. They cooperate (willingly or forcibly) with companies all over the world to obtain even more data which is collected in the name of building advertising profiles and marketing. It's Orwellian. People like Larry Ellison rejoice in the fact that they will soon feed all this data into a massive LLM and start arresting people for pre-crime that the LLM predicts. Social credit systems anyone?

The dystopian futures of sci-fi with the world governed by corporations, where freedom of thought and action are brutally curtailed, and hope is all but gone, seem horribly close to me.

Yet regardless, companies and governments have carried on putting all their eggs into a basket held by what is rapidly becoming a hostile nation.

This British political game that the article discusses is nothing more than distraction. In fact, it reads more like a particularly humourless script for Yes, Minister.

[Adair]

See Guardian article...

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/mar/22/palantir-extends-reach-into-british-state-as-it-gets-access-to-sensitive-fca-data

[RobertSteiner]

The blind leading the blind. Will we never learn. The NHS is the sovereign wealth of the UK and should be treated as such and not open to US manipulation.

[Ambivalous Crowboard]

Why can it not be

Why can it not be "UK to rethink tech after Trump makes US intolerably hostile to rest of world"?